Machine Play

Machine Play (pièce à machines). Before the 17th c. spectacular stage effects had been popular in such para-theatrical entertainments as royal entries and ballets de cour. From about 1640 the French theatre followed the Italian example in cultivating such effects. Richelieu and Mazarin brought Italian designers, notably Giacomo Torelli, to Paris, where they worked in the Palais Cardinal and the Salle du Petit Bourbon [see Theatres And Audiences, I]. Machinery allowing for sunrises and sunsets, flights and descents from heaven, rocks that opened and fountains that played, became increasingly important, achieving its apotheosis in the fêtes of Vaux-le-Vicomte and Versailles and in the operas of Quinault and Lully. The term ‘machine play’ is given to a variety of works (tragedy, pastoral, etc.) in which the spectacular element predominates, usually with a strong admixture of music and dance. The most famous examples of the genre are Pierre Corneille's Andromède (1650) and La Toison d'or (1661) both performed at the Théâtre du Marais, which came to specialize in such shows. Although derided by defenders of the more literary type of tragedy, machine plays, like the opera, were very popular with contemporary audiences.

— Peter France